BRODBECK: No quick fix for Winnipeg's lengthy ER wait times

The longest ER delays in the city continue to be at Concordia Hospital where the median wait time in April was 2.53 hours.

Data released last month by the WRHA showed ER wait times were down between 9% and 31% in 2017-18 compared to the previous year. However, those wait times are still much longer than the national average, according to figures compiled by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Emergency room wait times in Winnipeg fell in April and were down over the past year compared to 2016/17. But ER wait times in the city – which have been among the longest in Canada in recent years – are still well above the national average. And don’t expect them to fall to national levels anytime soon, even under a new hospital consolidation plan health officials say is designed to speed up emergency department service.

“I think we have to be realistic in what we can achieve each year and set up goals that are realistic for the staff,” Krista Williams, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s chief health operations officer told the Winnipeg Sun.

The WRHA released new figures last week showing median wait times for emergency department patients dropped 19% in April compared to March. The 1.63-hour wait time was also slightly below the 1.7-hour wait time for the same month last year.

Data released last month by the WRHA showed ER wait times were down between 9% and 31% in 2017-18 compared to the previous year.

However, those wait times are still much longer than the national average, according to figures compiled by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The median wait for emergency departments nationally is 1.1 hours. That’s a target the WRHA said last year – when it announced sweeping changes to hospitals across the city – it planned to achieve. Williams said the “gold standard” is still to reach the national average, but added it may take time to get there.

“We want to be aggressive with our goals and we want to make sure that we’re making continued improvements in it,” said Williams. “But if we’re too unrealistic about all of the things that have to happen and change in the system, it sets people up for failure.”

Williams wouldn’t say what the WRHA’s short-term wait time goals will be. She said those targets will be released in about a month.

“We’re finalizing those targets for this year as we speak,” said Williams. “We will have a target.”

The WRHA is also expected to release long-awaited details next week around the timing of the planned closure of Concordia Hospital as an acute care facility and the conversion of Seven Oaks Hospital to an urgent care centre. Both changes are part of the second phase of the Pallister government’s hospital consolidation plan, which includes moving from six acute care hospitals in Winnipeg to three, while operating two urgent care centres.

Meanwhile, the longest ER delays in the city continue to be at Concordia Hospital where the median wait time in April was 2.53 hours. However, the picture is worse when you look at the longest delays for nine out of 10 patients, called the 90th percentile wait time. That was was just over six hours at Concordia in April, according to WRHA data. That’s well above the city average of 4.38 hours for that category.

While Concordia’s wait times continue to drive up the average for the city, it’s still unclear what will happen when the hospital closes its ER and the facility is converted to a continuing care and long-term care facility.

The WRHA says added capacity at Grace Hospital’s newly renovated emergency department as well as new resources at Health Sciences Centre and St. Boniface Hospital will be able to absorb the increased patient volumes once Concordia is closed. The extent to which the WRHA has properly planned for the Phase Two changes and is able to implement them effectively is the crux of the entire consolidation plan. It’s probably why the second phase of the plan, which was originally supposed to launch in the spring of 2018, is being delayed until next year.

Either way, major reductions in wait times are probably not coming anytime soon. The improvements, if there are any at all, will likely come slowly and incrementally.

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